Glowing Guardian-Powerful and versatile for most classes, gives benefits at all stages of the game.-Constant easy piety gain, some restraints on glyphs, potions and non-sanctified butchery.-Little variation in boon strategy, Absolution and cleansing are seldom used, constantly sanctifying is essential but laborious.-Reasonable to switch to or from another god.-Harsh desecration penalty, especially if magic-focused.

Taurog-Powerful for melee-focused classes against enemies without heavy physical resist, gives benefits at all stages of the game.-Constant easy piety gain, heavy restraints on glyphs and inventory space.-Little variety in boon strategy, all roads lead to Unstoppable Fury.-Not great for god-switching, as Taurog rewards dedication.-Weak desecration penalty, none if switching to magic damage.

Mystera Annur-Powerful option for magic-users in general, especially those with sidestep or heal, gives benefits at all stages of the game. -Piety gain increases with mana pool, some restraints on enemy types and conversion.-Some variety in boon strategy, though largely focused on the Magic boon.-Reasonable to switch to or from another god.-Weak desecration penalty, none if switching to physical damage.

Tikki Tooki-Good options for early to mid-game, lacks good boon for late game.-Piety gain increases over time, some restraints on sustained combat.-Some variety in boon strategy, though Quicksilver and Reflexes are weak. Reflexes appears to only work if you strike first. Quicksilver has poor synergy with Dodge, as there's over a 29% chance you would've dodged anyway when it triggers... over 61% if you're a rogue with Dodge.-Excellent candidate to switch from, weak to switch to, as his best benefits are long-term.-Medium desecration penalty, none if switching to magic damage.

Dracul-Very good options for boss fights, few benefits early game.-Piety gain is mainly tied to reducing max health, some restraints on enemy types, glyphs and potions.-Some variety in boon strategy, though Blood Hunger and Blood Shield are weak in boss fights, Dracul's apparent focus.-Excellent candidate to switch to, weak to switch from. He's at his best full healing you in a boss fight until you get below 1-hit range, then trading max health for max mana.-Harsh desecration penalty, none if switching to magic.

Comment Section

On Dracul - Is a bossfight switch to Dracul, Blood Swelling as long as you can, then Blood Powering until you can't his intended purpose? His boons have variety but base piety gain is so slow, and there's so many undead enemies, that you can literally--literally--get to 25 piety faster by starting as a different god and switching to him.

On Tikki Tooki - Tikki has the opposite problem of Dracul, though that makes them a good pairing. After Tikki's Edge and Dodge, there's no real reason to stay with Tikki; Tikki's Edge is much worse on the second go-around than the first, the two potions are useless, and Poison is best with repeated hits, which Tikki dislikes-but other gods are fine with, if you switch after obtaining it.

For the curious, the 29.6% with Reflexes is .1+.8(.1+.7(.1+.6(.1+.5(.1+.4(.1+.3(.1+.2(.1+.1(.1)))))))). 10% that you would've dodged anyway on the first hit, 8% on the next (because there's only an 80% chance that you didn't dodge on the first hit), 5.6% on the third (70% chance out of the 80% that you didn't dodge yet) and so on.

I've made pretty good use of Taurog -> Dracul, especially in the dungeons where all the enemies tend to use the same attack type; skip either the helmet or the armor, depending on what protection you least need, kill all the undead you can, then take advantage of Dracul's much better healing boon and late game piety gains. I suspect that Mysteria -> Dracul might be a pretty good combo for magic users, especially if her Magic boon gets nerfed any more. Also, Dracul's desecration penalty is weak to none for Warlords (and others) relying on CYDSTEPP.

Dracul's other boons probably need a boost if he's going to be a viable early game deity rather than a free healing pot you make use of only at the end, a la Glowing Guardian in the alpha. It should probably also be made easier to gain piety from him early on and harder to gain it later; I think removing the penalty for killing undead (he probably hates them, too, being all glittery in the sunlight and embarrassing him) and maybe having Blood Tithe take a smaller chunk of HP at lower levels (I'm thinking something along the lines of 2 HP per level, or maybe 25% of current max HP) so that early sacrifices cost less in the end than last minute conversions.

Tikki Tooki's reflexes potion can be very powerful in the right circumstances, effectively granting you double damage for one attack, but unfortunately those circumstances are rare and I'm not sure if it's worth the cost. You have to hit the monster first for it to work; not even simultaneous hits will trigger it (and if your next attack doesn't trigger it, the effect is completely wasted). Basically you either need to have first strike, be at a higher level than the enemy, or slow the enemy with WEYTWUT (and if the enemy also has first strike, only WEYTWUT will work). It's rather silly to use the ability on lower level enemies, so unless you are lucky enough to find WEYTWUT or GETINDARE, you can only take advantage of the effect if you are a Rogue or an Assassin. On the other hand, the effect will still trigger if you dodge the enemy's attack (but again, only if you hit first), so it combines reasonably well with the other dodge abilities. The problem for Rogues, of course, is that the ability requires that the enemy hit you (or try to, at least) and that's usually the last thing that you want to have happen as a Rogue. Costing both a large chunk of piety and a health potion, it's not an ability that I see being worthwhile very often, although it's not like Rogues get a lot of use out of their health potions anyway. If Tikki Tooki ever goes back to granting first strike, or especially if he gets some kind of slowing boon, these might become more useful.

You actually HAVE to hit first with reflexes potion in order to get it to work? The description is really misleading then.

When I read it, I thought having first strike would let you hit first two times or something (i.e you can potentially kill a monster with 2 hits before it attacks you) while simultaneous hits just mean you get 2 attacks but still take damage.

But I see it doesn't work that way. Man that just makes it... kind of lame really.

Nandrew wrote:Hm. So with regards to Reflex potions ... what if they automatically awarded you first strike while you used them?

That would make them much more attractive for all other (than rogues) classes, indeed. There are still monsters with first strike, though...

Another idea - they could instead make you do an additional attack on enemy when you dodge, regardless of strike order.

The way I've come to view poison is that it doesn't give you piety for more boons; instead, it gives you piety from weak enemies to spend on "you're taking too much damage" when fighting strong enemies. That, however, requires the player to change their mindset from "I don't want to annoy my god(red text is scary!)", "I want more boons(I can get 1 more exp from that last enemy!)" and, not the least, "I want more gold(8k is not enough!)" to "I want to clear the dungeon without switching from TT no matter what(loyalty is awesome, right?..)".

Mysteria is way too strong if you have BLUDTOPOWA, since you basically get double piety if you're lucky enough to find it. I would suggest having reduced piety gain (or some minor penalty, like +1 MP cost) for spells cast while BLUDTOPOWA is in your inventory, active or not (penalizing only its activation, or only spells cast while active, would be too easy to game). She could also reward its destruction with a small amount of piety, rather than the usual demerit. "Magic is for seekers of knowledge, not those who hunger for power."

I'm in favor of the first strike idea on reflex. It would also be cool if they came in like a two-pack or something also. It would feel less like wasting piety if you bought one for every instance you needed first strike.

Since first strike is also a glyph, there produces another idea - what about single-use fireball/etc. scrolls? For those times when you're just out of mana but you need one more hit?